Hollywood studios filed a new round of lawsuits against file swappers on Thursday, for the first time using peer-to-peer companies’ own data to track down individuals accused of trading movies online.

The Motion Picture Association of America said it filed 286 lawsuits against people around the United States based on information acquired from file-trading sites shut down earlier in the year. Most of those sites were hubs connecting people using the BitTorrent technology.

The group previously said in February that a Texas court had ordered that the server logs of one big site, called LokiTorrent, be turned over to Hollywood investigators. Hollywood lawyers are hoping that the fear of exposure will dissuade more people from trying to download movies for free online.

Source: News.com

Windows Vista will switch off certain features of the trusted platform module due to privacy concerns, Stephen Heil, technical evangelist for Microsoft’s Core OS Division has said.

“There are some operations that use public key information that could potentially be perceived as privacy risk areas,” Heil told delegates in a session about Secure Startup at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.

“Things that do quotes and attestations […] are turned off by default.”

The trusted platform module is an open industry standard governed by the not-for-profit Trusted Computing Group which develops security standards.

The chip has several features, including an encryption engine and a place where users can safely store passwords.

The TPM however is loathed by critics because it could be used to enforce digital rights management technology and retrict consumer’s fair use rights.

“Open source browsers like Firefox won’t be allowed to access sites that require the security platform,” open source activist Bruce Perens suggested last month at the Linuxworld conference in San Francisco.

The chip in theory could also be used to charge users a fee for printing web pages or to prevent them from seeing the source of a internet page, Perens advocated.

Such applications would depend on the TPM’s unique identifier number. Windows Vista turns off that feature, although the user or other applications can later again activate it.

Source: PCW

Sirius unveils its first wearable satellite radio, the Sirius S50. Users can capture and store up to 50 hours of Sirius satellite radio programming and MP3/WMA files. The device also can tune in to live radio broadcasts.

Sirius wearable radio (source)

The Sirius S50, which can be taken almost anywhere, is expected to be available in October for a suggested retail price of $359.99, including a car docking station. A home docking station will cost an extra $99.

Source: News.com

Gamers in China are facing new limits on how much time they can spend playing their favourite online game.

The government in Beijing is reported to be introducing the controls to deter people from playing for longer than three consecutive hours.

The measures are designed to combat addiction to online role-playing games such as World of Warcraft and Lineage II.

More than 20 million Chinese play games regularly, mainly in net cafes.

Source: BBC

The three companies involved in making the Cell microprocessor have released new details about the chip in an attempt to break its reputation as only being able to power the next Sony PlayStation console.

Sony Group, Toshiba and IBM–sometimes referred to as STI–on Thursday published some previously undisclosed technical specifications and software standards for the Cell architecture, and more documents are expected to be released.

The companies said they are hoping the documents will entice software developers, business partners, and academic and research organizations to come up with new uses for the Cell chip.

So far, Sony has said it will use the chip inside the upcoming PlayStation3 gaming console, while Toshiba has said it will incorporate Cell into TV sets

Source: News.com

Intel announced two new initiatives Wednesday that could help computer users get rid of the “rat’s nest” of cables behind their desks.

The chipmaker, which made the announcement during the Intel Developer Forum here, is one of several companies that have been trying to make the Wireless Universal Serial Bus specification more common to PCs and other consumer electronics. Similar to USB cables, the wireless version of the interconnect technology lets people easily connect a device with PCs and other gear.

Now in an effort intended to spur adoption of Wireless USB, Intel said it is working with Microsoft, NEC, Philips, Texas Instruments and others on a new specification called the Wireless Host Controller Interface (WHCI). The specification will define a standard method in which a Wireless USB device can communicate with a PC’s software, and, executives hope, could accelerate industry development of interoperable Wireless USB products.

“The WHCI specification will let us bring out Wireless USB products that are interoperable in 2006,” said John Howard, Intel’s principal architect for certified Wireless USB.

Source: News.com

Microsoft Corp. will soon make available to the general public a tool for warning users about “phishing” scams that could lead to identity theft.

Currently, such a tool comes only with the Internet Explorer 7 browser, which is available in tests only to a select group of developers.

But within a few weeks, Microsoft will incorporate it into a toolbar for older versions of IE. While still officially a test, the anti-phishing tool will be available to anyone running the Windows XP operating system with the Service Pack 2 security upgrade from last summer.

The company will eventually make it available to older Windows systems, too.

Source: AP

Matsushita Battery Industrial Co. and Intel Corp. said they would collaborate to develop batteries able to run a notebook PC for 8 hours without recharging.

The collaboration, announced at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, would leverage Intel’s low- power consumption technology for notebook PCs with Matsushita’s lithium-ion battery technology.

“We expect that the joint development will enable us to propose a solution that enables eight hours of full operation by a [built-in] battery,” a Matsushita spokesman said.

Source: InformationWeek